Flora MacDonald (politician)

Flora MacDonald (3 June 1926-26 July 2015) was the Foreign Minister of Canada from 4 June 1979 to 2 March 1980, succeeding Don Jamieson and preceding Mark MacGuigan. She was a prominent member of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada and a close ally of Prime Minister Joe Clark.

Biography
Flora MacDonald was born in North Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada on 3 June 1926 to a family of Scottish descent. She worked for the Bank of Nova Scotia before becoming a Progressive Conservative Party of Canada political aide; in 1972, she was elected to the Parliament. MacDonald became allies with the fellow moderate Joe Clark, and she became one of the world's first foreign ministers when Clark appointed her to that position in 1979. She served for less than a year, but she played a key role in rescuing some of the American hostages held by Iran during the Iran hostage crisis of 1979-1980. She left government after Clark lost re-election, and she left Parliament in 1988. MacDonald died in Ottawa in 2015.